Dreams and schemes

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Location: Brunswick, ME, United States

I am fun-loving, a dreamer, but not much of a schemer. I try always to be a good friend, and a good mother, daughter and sister. I am a hard worker, and I like to work hard and also to have a good time. I am serving in the Peace Corps, in Moldova, and the insight and opinions in this blog are mine, and do not reflect the opinions of the US government or the Peace Corps. "I cannot do great things. I can only do small things with great love."

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Happy Birthday!


Happy birthday today to Linnea and to her cousin, Stephen! Twenty-six and twenty years ago two great people were welcomed into the world. Enjoy the day and have a great celebration!

There has not been much new here in the past week. Lots and lots of heavy rain, followed by cooler days and nights. There has been a lot of flooding in the Ukraine, and the Nistru river that is the border between our village and the Ukraine has flooded in some areas, but our house is far up the hill, and I am very safe here. I did get a call on Monday from the PC Safety guy, just checking to make sure that I was okay here. It was reassuring to know how closely situations like this are monitored by Peace Corps, but really there was little risk for me and this village. Last night I did see a television news report, and the flooding in the Ukraine is quite serious, with a lot of crop damage, so concerns were not unfounded. The price for food in this area of the world has increased noticeably, although there are not reported shortages yet, and this will not help things over the coming winter.

Other than watching the rain, not much else is new. People here walk down near the river to watch the water, just like they do when there is flooding at home. Must be a human trait not determined by geography! Construction is moving along, but slowly. Many of the workers have returned to their homes to work their fields for a few weeks. Just a few weeks ago there were about 15 people working there, and now there are about 5 working everyday. I've been staying as busy as I can, and go into Stefan Voda for the afternoon if I get too bored with village life. Last week I went there both Thursday and Friday afternoon! Same old, same old...Happy birthday to my favorite daughter and her cousin!

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Phones are working again!

Yesterday it was a week since the phone has been working here at the house, so I haven't been able to use the dial-up to post anything. Now I am finally able to get back online, although I was in Chisinau briefly on Monday and did read my email at least.

Last Tuesday I spent the day digging potatoes. All of you Maine readers who have done this, or anyone else, for that matter, I have a new appreciation for this work. My main response though, is YUCK! There were five of us, Lidia, her sister, Nadia, Nadia's husband, Eugene, and the hired guy, Igor, and me. The field was probably not bigger than a quarter of an acre, and it only took one morning, but it is a lot of bending and lifting. Everything here is done by hand, and is much harder than it needs to be. We dug from 6 in the morning until about noon, and finished the field. We filled 7 bags listed as 50 kg. (110 lbs.) so probably between 700 and 800 lbs. of potatoes. Lidia said that this year the potatoes are smaller, and there are not nearly as many as there have been in other years. I did get a rash, or ant bites all over my legs, and had a hard time sleeping that night, but other than that side effect, it wasn't too bad. The rest of last week was spent studying, walking, the usual slow stuff. The best thing was a phone call from my family. I got to talk to Linnea, my mom, my grandmother, and my sister. That was a great treat! I can't wait until I can get the high-speed connection here at the house, sometime in October or November, and can try the Skype again. I know from experience that it doesn't work well with the dial-up, and the phone is so incredibly expensive.

Progress is being made daily on the Center where I will be working, although I don't see how it will be done within two weeks. Natalia and I did meet with the foreman last week and he said that it would be done by August 1. We'll see.

Monday, as I said, I went into Chisinau for a VAC phone call with some volunteers from Romania to talk about similarities between the programs between the two countries, and trying to support a collaborative process for the Peace Corps Volunteers in Eastern Europe. While in the big city I looked for some gifts to send home for upcoming birthdays and weddings, but everything here is of very poor quality and expensive at the same time, so I left empty-handed except for some new books to read. Early apologies to those who will not be getting gifts from me this year.

Not much else new. The summer weather is warm, the watermelon, peaches and plums are ripe and yummy, and I am settling into this slower pace. Miss you all.

Friday, July 11, 2008

There is no OSHA in Moldova

I have seen some of the most unsafe things since being in Moldova that I have ever seen in my life, and this week was no exception. I never realized how aware of safety issues I am, and have taken the whole safety thing for granted for years. I did serve on the Safety Committee for a while when I worked at Sweetser, but other than that experience, I have been blissfully unaware of how conscious we are as a culture of our personal safety. Here are some examples of things I have actually seen here in my village: At the construction site for the building where I will be working all of the workers wear flip flops, all the time. No closed toe shoes, much less steel-tipped boots; I have seen many people on ladders on uneven ground and hills, picking fruit out of trees and working on wires of some kind (I don't even want to know); I have seen six people riding down the road on a motorcycle with sidecar; I have seen an adult with up to three children riding a moped. I actually see this a lot, one or two toddlers standing on the floorboards facing the adult driving, with one or two sitting behind the driver. I have not seen an adult with four children, but two or three seems pretty common, and the toddlers are pretty young (two or three years old) who are standing facing the driver. I guess it is better that they face the driver and not the road, but come on! This week I was out for my walk one morning, and saw a young man stop on his bicycle at the gas station to get some gas. He put it into a 1.5 liter soda bottle and rode off. I then saw him stop and light a cigarette! Yikes! Not the sharpest tool in the shed, that one! There was no subsequent explosion, so I guess I had nothing to worry about!

Since I mentioned it, in general the construction site is moving along well, safety issues aside. The flip flops are just one example of things that just don't seem "right". The fact that the workers are living in the building while it is nothing but a shell probably would never pass OSHA standards either. The new windows are in, and the crew is now working seven days a week and clearly more than 40 hours a week. The plan was for the building to be done by August 1. I am not sure that they will be done in three weeks, but I do think we will be in there by the middle of the month. That is exciting!

I didn't write this last time, but I was in Chisinau on July 3 and had a really productive trip. My computer had "crashed" and I got it fixed. The PC IT guy, Andrei Rusu, worked on it for about 4 hours, and it is working just like new. Thank you, Andrei! The other thing that I was in for was that as the VAC (Volunteer Advisory Committee) rep. I was invited along with the rest of the VAC committee to the 4th of July Party (on the 3rd) at the Ambassador's residence. There is a new Ambassador to Moldova, and he was not in residence yet, but it was a big deal. There were lots of State Department officials, Moldovan representatives, and others. It was more of a reception than a party, with lots of speeches and schmoozing, but it was cool to be invited, and the perks were great. The down side of this trip was that there was another party that PC volunteers were invited to, but it wasn't taking place until Saturday, the 5th. That was just too much time for me to be away from my village, and the turn around time was too fast to make it back in to Chisinau for Saturday night. So I came back to my village on Friday afternoon, with a working computer and figured I just lay low for a while. I didn't realize how much I would miss seeing my friends here and how slow this week would go. I did get a nice surprise phone call from my mom which brightened up my week, but by Wednesday afternoon I thought I would lose it, I was so bored! I was like a kid again..."Mom, I'm bored!!!!" I was supposed to meet with my tutor on Wednesday afternoon, and he cancelled. I knew I needed to do something. I called my friend Teresa, who lives in a suburb of Chisinau and went for a visit yesterday afternoon, coming back this morning. I went to see her work site, met some Dutch women who are also volunteering where she works, went on some home visits with the visiting nurse type person and Teresa and the other volunteers, had dinner with Teresa and Jenna, another PC volunteer, met her host family, watched American TV, had a great time!! Just what I needed. See, I do know how to take care of myself! I still worry, but I can't stand to worry and be bored at the same time! I can only handle over-whelming emotion at a time, and things are back on track.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Ripe

It is the season of ripe fruit here in Moldova. Last week I spent a lot of time picking, pitting, and helping to preserve cherries, both black and sour. The plums are almost ripe and the peaches are getting ready to be picked. I really do love all the fresh fruit. For many years I had allergies to fresh fruit, but I am finding that if I have just a little bit at a time, I am able to do pretty well with it. Everyday since being here I have had cabbage and potatoes offered up in many different ways, but now all of that is supplemented with really fresh and healthy food.

The other thing that is ripe, and I don't mean this to be as offensive as I think it might sound, is that the heat, combined with the different sense of "space" that most Moldovans share, has made for some "ripe" moments on the buses and around town. I don't know if I have shared how different the Moldovan sense of personal space is from my own, but at times it has been uncomfortable for me. There is an almost constant need to be touching others that I have been challenged by. The heat has made this a bit more of an issue for me, as odors have increased along with the temperature. I have some lovely homemade soap that I use daily and am so grateful for, but not everyone here shares my need not to feel so "ripe". On the buses it is particularly interesting, as many here believe that the fresh air coming in through open windows causes illness. Babies are bundled even in the heat, and windows on the buses are almost always left closed, even though there is usually no working air conditioning. I personally don't care for air conditioning, but fresh air has always been welcome. Whew!

I have gotten a few more questions:
How hard is the language? I feel fortunate because I think Romanian is not that difficult compared to other languages. It is very close to Latin and Italian, so my nieces Emile and Sloane would probably not have much trouble with it. My receptive skills are much better than my expressive skills with the language, but everyday I learn new words. and it is coming along. I am glad that I didn't have to learn Russian, and I am working to learn more phrases and words, but realistically I know that I will not become proficient during the next two years in Russian.

What can you buy there? What is in the Piata/Market? In the market in my village, which is on a Sunday morning, you can buy food and clothing. In the market in Chisinau you can buy almost anything. The quality in both markets is not great, although the produce is very good, the other household and clothing items are not of great quality. I think that if I needed to I could probably find everything I need in Chisinau. My local market meets my everyday needs.

So last thing before I sign off is just to say that I am still in the process of "letting go" and using the serenity prayer to remind me that there are so many things that are beyond my control right now. I think that my house is finally rented. Linnea is doing okay, still trying to figure out what is next for her, but looking forward to a visit from her friends from Pennsylvania. I am saying a special prayer for my friends whom I miss everyday, and some of whom I love and worry about all the time. Thanks always to my parents for their letters and ongoing and incredible support. I couldn't be doing this without you all backing me up! Miss you all. Jami